Welcome
by Silvia Kundera
Summary: Sometimes what you get is not what you wanted, but it's what you need. (Hermione/Ron)


Title:** Welcome  
**Author: Silvia Kundera  
Disclaimer: This story's author does not claim to own any of the characters, concepts, or ideas originating in J. K. Rowlings' Harry Potter novels. No copyright infringement intended. No harm intended. Site material is offered to the public free of charge--not for profit. This piece of fiction is the sole property of the author and cannot be copied, sent, or reproduced without permission of the author.  
Rating: PG  
Pairing: Ron/Hermione  
Summary: "Well, you know Diane, we oughtta run out of the city/Diane says "Baby, you aint missin' no-thing" - John Mellencamp  
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This is your life.

You wake up to the sound of eggs sizzling downstairs and a wand swooshing through the air, and you think, 'I bet those would taste _glorious_ right now,' and you don't get to eat any of them.

You floo to the office because you never have once made it up for breakfast, and you'll grab a biscuit from Miss Greenway in Magical Catastrophes, but you can't do that if you Apparate, because it always makes you queasy for approximately three hours afterward. It's like your stomach is tied into knots.

Your name plate says Ronald Weasley, etched in gold, because there was already a Mr. Weasley, because he is your father, and there was already a Weasley, because he is your brother, and your first name is what you have left, and no one will listen to a man who can be summed up in one syllable. At least, that's what your wife said, and she's never wrong.

Your wife was still your girlfriend, secretly, in your head for the first two years, just like you're still Ron, you'll _always_ be Ron, even if you now know how to answer to Ronald, and it almost doesn't feel weird. You love her so much that you don't remember the last time you said it. She's just so damned beautiful.

She shares charms with Shirley Longbottom to wink out the gray that you've never seen in the first place, though she swears there's a hint of it, and makes supper on the weekends. Her hands are cramped from her quills and her shoulders are hunched like all librarians' are, and so you ask to do it _every_ day, but she won't hear of it.

"I couldn't _possibly_," she says, very loudly and with that wide 'o' she makes that forces you to kiss her.

You married her in the spring, because Dumbledore had coughed -- he had been doing too much of that lately -- and said, gravely, "Then she will bring springtime with you, wherever you go." 

You have an office on the sixteenth floor, and a picture beside your inbox of the twins standing proudly in India across from one of their shops. George winks mischievously, and waves, but Fred just looks tired. You always mean to owl them, and your mother, but you never do.

You bring Percy his lunch when you think of it, because _he_ never does, and you have to wade through oceans and rivers and tributaries of parchment just to come close enough to lay it into his lap. He never looks up, and you often have to tell him, "You have a eagle post waiting," and the poor starved bird squawks.

He says, "So I _do_," so surprised, and blinks, and then feeds the eagle his lunch in exchange for the message.

You can't help but laugh.

  


  


This is your life, and you wake up one morning and realize this is a not a dress rehearsal, this is not getting ready, this not is preparing, this is not growing up. You're living it.

You can make a casserole.

You own a house -- like it's _yours_ and you don't just sleep there -- and it's only a little rickety. There's a rug in the front room that Hermoine hates and your parents hate and your friends hate but you picked it out. You clean the gnomes out of the garden on Saturdays with the sleeves of your robes rolled up and dotted with Stay Fast. 

You have a routine.

The bills are sometimes overdue, because you are your father's son, but your household and Gringotts are still on speaking terms because you are your mother's son too. It looks a little bad, and then it starts looking better, and you breathe a while, and then it looks bad again, and you're never too worried because you've done this before.

You have an office at home and you call it that, when it's just a room. The reports you start at a larger desk are finished there, amongst wards that make your skin itch, and you remark, rather cheerfully, "Maybe someone will read this one," just to get your secretary to look at you _like that_.

You get an owl twice a year from Hogwarts asking for a little sum of money, here and there, and you usually give something. The Ministry still has a hand or five in the pot, so you visit sometimes. Check things out. McGongall is still there, and she asks you for tea and is actually asking for information, and sometimes you give her some.

You say things like, "for old time's sake," and take tours of things you memorized years ago, of a place -- the _one_ place -- that never changes.

"Mr. Weasley," she murmurs, with that tight smile you remember so well, and you answer,

"Professor," before you can stop yourself.

You return home at dusk and hope Ginny hasn't dropped over once again with her insufferable husband. Usually she hasn't. Hermione's been hiding the wand catalogue once again -- because you don't need a new one, apparently, even though it's begun fizzling in an alarming manner -- but you had Bonnie over at Experimental Charms ferret out the spell Hermione likes to use and you get the damned thing in your hands in about seven minutes flat.

You call this a challenge, and that makes Ginny's young ones call you washed up, and you chuckle and reply, "I was never dirty to begin with." 

You weren't second best. You weren't even third, or fourth, or tenth. You never won the Quidditch cup. You never held the House Cup. You never made Head Boy. You never looked good.

Your shirts are a fraction too loose at the shoulders and Hermione pretends to wince when she hugs you from behind, as if your bones are sharp poking knives, until the both of you laugh. Your eyes were small to begin with and they've become underlined with soft skin and wrinkles as you squint more and more. The back of your head mocks combs, and even spells. 

Harry brings the slow broom over when you play, because of your balance, your stupid knees, and he lets easy blocks sail past him. His hair still flops over his forehead like it loves to touch him, and you still curse out loud when you brush your own back.

"Oh, _honestly_," your wife says -- and she feels so much like a wife in that moment -- and it's tucked behind your ears for you.

"Would you _stop_?" you say back.  


Welcome to the rest of your life.

This is your life and it's nothing special, and you realize that you were always right -- _you're_ nothing special. Things have turned out exactly how, deep down, you always knew they would.

And the utterly _fantastic_ thing is:

That's just fine by you.

end


End file.
